Do You Have a Pleasure Ceiling?

It’s sometimes true. My sex and intimacy clients teach me all the time through their openness in sharing their feelings. It happened again, just other day. I was in the middle of working with an extraordinary 40-year-old female client around building her “Pleasure Plan”. We were in the midst of talking about orgasms and self pleasuring as a way of her exploring and expanding her pleasure. I had given her an assignment during the session to experiment with during the week between our calls. The assignment felt really big for her, because she was like most people. Self Pleasuring (masturbation) followed the “Quiet and Quick Rule”. How quickly could she self pleasure and how quietly.

A married woman – she tried to sneak in her self pleasure around a husband not catching her.

We spoke about how she was treating her own sexuality the way a "not so polite lover" might treat her. She had never romanced herself before she took out the vibrator to “get off”. There was no sexy self talk, no hot bubble bath, no loving self massage with favorites oils. She didn’t even take the time to get undressed. She and I were laughing hysterically as we compared her treatment of her own vagina over and over again to that of an inconsiderate lover who just wanted to come and take what he wanted and get out. She never stayed with her own sexual excitement long enough to see if there was perhaps more pleasure to be found. After all, she had got what she had come for…why wait around to see if her body wanted more pleasure or not?

“I think I have a pleasure ceiling” my client said. Wow, I think she may have coined a brand new term: “Pleasure Ceiling”.

I loved the that just flew out of her mouth in a moment of epiphany. “I worry if I have too much pleasure that something bad will happen like I will stop being responsible or something. Or I will go off the rails. It’s not just sex it’s also food, or dancing – anywhere I have pleasure. I always cut it short. I have to be responsible and leave early so I can make sure that I won’t be late for work in the morning. Or worse – just ditch it all for pleasure. So I think I keep it under wraps.”

Holy Guacamole! My client had nailed it – and she was speaking for so people. We have installed “Pleasure Ceilings” because if we don’t, we might “go off the rails”. It’s such an interesting story that so many of us have created around our own pleasure. Somehow, if our pleasure goes too far – it will wreck our lives. Of course I am the Queen of removing pleasure ceilings and proving that it will not wreck your life – in fact it will transform your life.

My client and I sat with each other a while, and I asked her if she was going to be able to do her assignment of expanding her self pleasure the way discussed. She looked at me with her dark open eyes and said; “Sometimes I say to myself: Self – what made you think you can do this? Take it to another level? Experience something more? And then, I get kinda angry with myself! Why not? I’ve got the goods to do it! It’s about time! Well, why not me? It’s time to move my pleasure ceiling.”

So where are the “Pleasure Ceilings” in your life? Where are you frightened that if you moved them up higher, or break them down completely that something awful will happen? I promise you that things might change, transform and look different – that’s true. But I bet the view will be so much more beautiful with a sun roof.

For me, previous experiences set my ceiling to where it is, or its knowing people who have gone through some of the worst consequences of that that make me not want to get even close.

For example, drinking (I'm 23 btw). Some of the parties I go to have more alcohol consumed than a Pub on St. Patrick's day. And there's always that one person who goes too far with their liquor. Everyone knows someone like this; the show up, get smashed within the first hour the first bottle is open, and spend the night throwing up in the bathroom. And people always talk. They talk about how drunk so-and-so got with such disdain in their voice. Being rejected by your peers is an awful feeling, and I avoid "too many" drinks (more than 2) to try and avoid the stigma. I get really self conscious if ever I do drink. I constantly ask myself "am I drunk?" "am I making a fool of myself?" "do I need to ask for a ride home?" "am I being paranoid?" And even if I do get a ride, I'm overcautious. There have been times where my dd would be in worse shape than I was, so I would drive THEM home. No one else would drive me, so in the end I would drive myself there and drive myself home, which meant no drinking.

I wouldn't trust myself with even 1 beer, not unless I waited about five hours after finishing it. I've known too many people who have died, nearly died, or been arrested because of drunk driving. I knew a girl who was arrested for being over the limit after a single glass of champagne. Knowing all that before I was legal to drink left me pretty terrified of relaxing with alcohol. A lot of my friends don't get it unless they know one of the people who died. Its hard to explain without sounding all dramatic. And they think I'm not having fun when I go to parties, which is completely not true. Its just I have a hard time enjoying drinking when so much has happened.

TL;DR I'm super paranoid about drinking because I don't want to be "that wasted girl" and I know people who've died because of drunk driving.